On Cold Emails and Why They're the Bravest Thing You Can Do

I've sent maybe 400 cold emails in my life.

Probably more. I stopped counting after the first hundred. From a Starbucks in Mumbai. From my apartment in Dehradun. From a hostel in Bali. From an airport in Amsterdam. Different cities, different Wi-Fi passwords, same energy.

People think cold emails are desperate. They're the opposite.

Desperation is staying in a job you hate because you're afraid to ask strangers for a chance. Desperation is having an idea and never telling anyone about it. Desperation is knowing you're capable of more and choosing silence over rejection.

A cold email says: "I know you don't know me. I know you have no reason to care. But I believe I can help you, and I'd rather get ignored than never try."

That's not desperation. That's courage wearing bad formatting.

Most of them got ignored. Obviously. That's the game. Some got polite "no thanks." A few got "tell me more." And a handful, maybe 5%, became actual projects that became actual relationships that became the entire foundation of everything I've built.

My studio exists because of cold emails. My first international client. Cold email. The project that got me into Web3. Cold email. The one that proved I could do design and development and strategy all at once. Cold email.

Every person who's told me they wish they had my career has also told me they could never send a cold email. And I think that's the whole difference, honestly. Not talent. Not luck. Willingness to be ignored.

Because here's the thing about rejection: it's not personal. It's logistical. The person didn't reject you. They were busy. Or your email was bad. Or the timing was off. None of that means you shouldn't send the next one.

I have a rule. After every rejection, or every silence, I send two more. Not out of spite. Out of belief. The numbers always work out if you keep going.

The math makes sense if you zoom out far enough. Every project started with someone saying yes to a stranger.

Send the email. The worst that happens is silence. And silence is just the sound of someone who hasn't heard you yet.

-I.R.